Magistretti’s approach was deceptively simple. He stripped away unnecessary ornament, experimenting with new materials and treated comfort as an essential part of form rather than an afterthought. The result was a body of work that remains remarkably contemporary decades after its creation.

His sofas rely on an understanding of how people inhabit a room. In this sense, Magistretti’s contribution to modern sofa design was a rethinking of what a sofa could be.

Born in Milan in 1920, Vico Magistretti came of age within the city’s rich architectural culture. His father, Pier Giulio Magistretti, was an architect, and the younger Magistretti followed the same path, graduating in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano.

This architectural sensibility became particularly significant in the evolution of Italian furniture design during the 1960s and 1970s. Designers were increasingly interested in industrial production and new synthetic materials, while manufacturers such as Cassina were collaborating with architects to create furniture capable of entering the modern home without losing its sense of individuality.

Magistretti was ideally positioned within this movement, where his designs stood out for being rigorous, but always a sense of playfulness beneath the precision.

One of Magistretti’s most important contributions to modern furniture was his willingness to reconsider the sofa as a landscape rather than a fixed object.

The traditional sofa tended to be conceived as a recognizable architectural unit: a frame, a seat, a back, and arms. Magistretti challenged these conventions by exploring softer volumes, unusual geometries, and more relaxed relationships between the individual components. His designs could appear almost architectural from a distance, yet invitingly informal at close range. This tension, between discipline and ease, is central to their enduring appeal.

Magistretti often allowed its construction and silhouette to become the decoration. Curves, cushions, and seams could provide the visual character that ornament once supplied. The effect was distinctly modern: furniture that could hold its own within an interior without overwhelming it.

Among Magistretti’s most celebrated sofas is the Maralunga, designed for Cassina in 1973. It became one of the defining pieces of modern Italian furniture and remains a reference point in contemporary sofa design.

The Maralunga is remarkable for the way it combines formal simplicity with a surprisingly adaptable structure. Its characteristic backrest can be raised or lowered, allowing the sofa to shift visually and functionally between a more upright sitting position and a relaxed, lounge-like configuration.

The sofa also demonstrated how technological innovation could remain almost invisible. Its engineering is embedded within the design rather than displayed as a technical feature. 

Perhaps the most revealing chapter in the Maralunga story is that Cassina has never treated it as a museum piece. In 2024, the company re-engineered its internal mechanism in collaboration with the Fondazione Magistretti, increasing the backrest’s inclination by seven degrees while preserving the original bicycle-chain mechanism. The family has also expanded into the Maralunga Maxi, with deeper seating, larger proportions, and an additional lumbar cushion, subtle changes that make a 1973 design feel surprisingly attuned to the way we live today.

Then there is the more theatrical Maralunga 50, introduced in 2023 to mark the sofa’s half-century and Magistretti’s entry into Cassina’s iMaestri collection. Wrapped in a distinctive red Nubuck, the colour Cassina associates closely with Magistretti himself, it turns the familiar silhouette into something almost collectible.

And the story has not stopped there. In 2026, a vintage Maralunga appeared in a limited collaboration between Liberty London and Vinterior, reupholstered in Liberty’s Shadow Stripe Weave. It is a small but telling detail: more than five decades after its debut, Magistretti’s sofa is still capable of absorbing new materials, new tastes, and new cultural references without losing its identity.